#ant elope

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Cocoonitude – Cocoonitude (Ghost Orchard / Dark Circles)

Debut from Cocoonitude, which I believe features a couple members from Quailbones and some moving parts of Ant Elope and Happy Forever. Not terribly removed from the Quailbones material, Cocoonitude come springing out the gate with some rather energetic garage-rock/pop that doesn't try and completely wash it down with the lo-fi fuzz and rather lets the songs here kind of take shape with an overall pleasant/sunshiny sound. It somewhat takes on a laid back/beach/surf type vibe here and there, but doesn't really beat one over the head with it thankfully, seemingly having a grasp on some nuances that keep the record from getting stuck in a monotonous litter of songs. Not too shabby. Limited to 100 cassettes from what I understand, otherwise this appears to be a digital only affair. Oh well. Cocoonitude - Shejango (stream) BUY IT!

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Sonder Valley by Ant Elope I was too hard on this guy when I reviewed his Hey! Get Your Heads Outta the Clouds! EP, perhaps. On Sonder Valley he offers up three songs, one with a backing track done by someone else. 'Daydreamer', the 'stolen' track, is the EP's bounciest and lightest and helps drive what Ant Elope does well on the other two songs: make short, sad dance tracks you can't really dance to.  That may sound back-handed, but it's not meant to. The shorter run times makes this easier to get into than Clouds!' tendency to push songs past the four minute mark and the title track flirts with gothic beauty better than anything else he's done. This is music to light up alone to - just enough sulking and ornamentation to soothe your inner depressed child. - Aleix Kite

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Hey! Get Yer Head Outta the Clouds! by Ant Elope It’s good this is a short EP. Not because it’s bad, it’s not, but it doesn’t do much. The synths go back and forth and the rhythms keep in the same pocket for each song. One could almost say Ant Elope could stand keeping their head in the clouds a little more often so that the songs really take off and bring the listener to a new world. But for now, it’s decently the kind of music you might enjoy when you’re high and begrudgingly single. - Aleix K.

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ANT ELOPE INTERVIEW

by Basie Campbell

Were there any changes in band members or perhaps just in "vision" between the two albums? I don't know if it's just me but I noticed a slight difference in sound. There's definitely a shift in instrumentation and overall approach from "What It Takes To Lose Your Mind" to "Hey! Get Yer Head Outta the Clouds." I recorded "What It Takes..." by myself in my house, tracking live drums and then layering synths on top of that, coming up with words then singing over them, if they had words at all. Yeah, Moving On was recorded in my living room with pots and pans. That EP is really just me fucking around in my house, trying to learn how to record, and generally losing my mind. I got to a point I was tired of working on those songs, and didn't know what to do with them, so I just released them. Then I started working on a record, and all these songs started pouring out. I started recording in different places, different studios in Western Kentucky, with an album in mind. The album got so cumbersome it's been cut into two different EPs and there's still a record's worth of material leftover, which I'm currently working on. "Hey!..." is the first of those two EPs. It was recorded much the same way as  "What It Takes.." except a drum machine replaced me physically playing the drums, and I was able to rope my buddy Matt Rowan into helping on a song. The other EP is called "Sonder Valley." It was recorded completely by midi, and it'll be coming out hopefully later this month/early June. As for the album, maybe sometime next year, maybe never, who knows. I've really been limited as to what equipment I've had available to me. This whole thing started when a synthesizer just kind of showed up at my house and I started trying to learn how to use it. Most of the equipment I use, actually, is borrowed from other people. Do you all live in Murray? Well, yes, I live in Murray. Ant Elope is really my own little personal project. Don't get me wrong, I've got help. I play in several different bands, and some times those musicians will lend me their services, like Matt Rowan who is on I'll Win and has helped me out live (playing drums/bass/synths). I've had some other musicians help translate these songs to a live setting as well, Jason Taylor (guitar) and Gregory Scott Cook (blip-bloops, and other strange noises). But I can also play most of these songs out live by myself using a drum machine and a Line 6 looping pedal. For my own curiosity, how do you tie in with Quailbones, if you do at all? Those guys are some of my best friends. I play drums in a band calling itself Cocoonitude, which is 2/5ths of Quailbones. Corbet Hall and Tim Peyton play in that band with me. I've already mentioned Matt Rowan who also plays in Quailbones. Him and I used to play in a band that would change it's name every show, and he's also played in The Savage Radley, which is another project I play drums for. Jordan Ferguson and Jeff Bugg are solid jabronies too. We all go way back. What are the advantages/ disadvantages to making alternative music in a small town? Music in a small town is a funny thing. There aren't a lot of people, which is both an advantage and disadvantage. There really is a tight knit group of people that are making music only for the sake of making music, which is good, but it also makes it harder to get your name out there and get exposure. I've played to plenty of empty bars, though I think that'll happen in bigger cities just the same. What do you want people to be doing when they're listening to Ant Elope? I'm just happy anyone is listening to it at all. Ideally I hope that people will put on some nice headphones, have the lyrics in front of them, and really dig into it, but that's probably unrealistic. I've got different songs for different moods. A lot of my songs are sad and self deprecating, some of them are dancey. I like to picture people dancing by themselves in their underwear. How would you describe Ant Elope to our readers in few words? I'd say it's like a lonely dance party. If you could tour with any other artists who would they be? Since you left it plural, and didn't specify alive or dead, for sake of convenience, I'll keep my answer to currently touring acts. I'd like to do a tour showcasing local acts. There are a lot of those, but we'll get to that. The Arcade Fire or The National. Those are two bands I've been able to see in the last year, and they are both at the top of their game. Chad VanGaalen, I wouldn't turn down touring with him either. Is there any current or future touring we should know about? I have a full time, 8am-4pm M-F job, so touring is a goal of mine that's on the back burner. I'm playing a lot locally, while I'm also focusing on recording. Is there pretty steady scene for you and bands like you in Murray? Any special traits of that scene that we should know about? Murray really does having a thriving music scene. I mean, it's crazy to think about how many super talented bands there are in such a small, out of the way place. This town is literally 2 miles wide, and it's in the middle of nowhere. We're 2 hours from Nashville, 4 from Louisville, and 3 from St. Louis. But through the University, and through Terrapin Station, through people just deciding to make it happen, there's a steady stream of touring acts coming through. State Champion from Louisville are playing here this week. Parquet Courts have toured through here, Colleen Green, and this band Marbin. MSU is able to get some of the bigger names, Bob Dylan, Ben Folds, Avett Brothers, Joe Pug. Willie Nelson and Allison Krauss are coming here. The first concert I ever went to was Lit and Garbage back in the 90's at what is now the CFSB center. So having all these artists coming by in a setting where you can actually meet them, I mean Joe Pug handed me one of his CDs for free, and that happened at Lovett Auditorium. I mean there are good venues here. And then there are the local acts. There are so many of them it's almost impossible to keep track of. There's a lot, and it's a wide spectrum of music, a lot different things depending on your palate. The Savage Radley is another band I play drums for. My other best friend, Otto Sharp, writes chillingly good Delta-folk songs, and that girl's voice is something else entirely. I play drums for this band Kentucky Vultures too. Tim Johns is the songwriter for that band, and he's a professor at the university, writes simple but intelligent rock music. There is of course Quailbones for all your post-punk needs, but there's also Joanie and the Missiles which has some of the same members as Quailbones. I've mentioned Cocoonitude already. Then there are The Barbariettes, which you may be familiar with. There's a funky jam band called Big Atomic that's from Murray. They are always a good time. The Drunken Poets play some bluegrassy/blues/gypsy stuff that's excellent. If you expand the map just a little and include some other area bands, there's this band from Metropolis Il called Leonard the Band who I've been friends with for some years now. There's Gideon's Rifle, Oh Yeah! Dakota, Red Ember. I mean, I could keep going...but that right there is a chuck of things to try to get into. Do any nonmusical artistic entities influence your music, like movies or books or visual art? If so what are they? I love this question. The short answer is yes. I've written songs having a movie or a book in mind. I have a song called Space Cadet that was written right after I watched Gravity. High Fidelity remains one of my favorite movies of all time. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one of my favorite books, and I'm also a big fan of Alice in Wonderland. Oh and Hunter S. Thompson. For visual art James Turrell is where it's at. The medium he works through is light itself. It's insane. I'd also say Reggie Watts, though he does incorporate music, it's mostly a stand up comedy routine. Does anyone else think that the track I'll Win, off your latest album has a Lost in the Supermarket vibe or is that just me? I think that's the first Clash comparison I've got. I definitely got down with some London Calling, that whole album reminds me of an entire summer when I was 19 or 20.